MP: Banning Muslim Brotherhood in UK could lead to terrorism

Banning the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in the UK could work in favour of terrorist organisations, a Conservative Party Minister of Parliament warned.

The Telegraph newspaper quoted Crispin Blunt, the former justice minister, saying that blacklisting the MB without adequate evidence could lead to unneeded repercussions.

“The worst possible thing would be a fit-up job that listed the Muslim Brotherhood on the terrorist list with little or no evidence,” he said, “it would be a betrayal of our values and make the problem worse.”

He said that Saudi Arabia and certain Gulf states look at the MB as a direct political threat to their regimes.

The MP said that British officials had to investigate whether the MB leadership had planned violent activities from within the UK or not. But he insisted that “a misapplied policy could drive its followers into the arms of Al-Qaeda.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron had ordered a probe into the activities of the MB and to see whether it is linked to terrorism based on MI5 and MI6 information and a report conducted by the British ambassador in Riyadh, Sir John Jenkins.